Zarter Christmas
by Reader347
Summary: Christmas with Carter, Zia, and the rest of the 21st Nome. Post Serpents Shadow. WARNING small reference may ruin faith in Santa. Please Review i will except anything positive or negative i need feedback. Disclaimer: I do not own the Kane Chronicles.
1. Chapter 1

Zarter Christmas

Chapter 1

It was Christmas Eve 3 months after defeating Apophis and the whole Twenty First Nome had decorated Brooklyn House for the occasion. Carter had never had a real Christmas traveling the world and Christmas had only meant that he would be spending the day with Sadie. This year though he had all of Brooklyn House to celebrate with and best of all Zia.

Carter was walking with Zia through the house. With it being Christmas eve everyone had already gone to bed to hurry the night along, so they had the place to themselves. Zia had missed the decorating because she was gone for a week to help Amos in the First Nome. Now that she was back Carter led her through the halls holding her hand as she pointed and asked questions about decorations. Growing up in Egypt and being raised by the First Nome she had never seen or experienced a Christmas so she was even more lost then he was. He would answer the questions but mostly focused on her, particularly her face and the expressions that would ripple across it as she looked at different things. She would ask questions like, "Why do you put trees inside."

He would reply with, "Because were crazy and think they'll grow better inside." She would then laugh, gods he loved her laugh. The week without her had been torture. He was trying to saver every second now that she was back.

They walked through every inch of the house with Zia leaning into Carter and admiring the decorations. After a while Carter pulled her close and surprised her with a kiss. She obviously hadn't expected it but obliged to it and when they parted she said, "What was that for."

He pointed at the ceiling above them and said, "Mistletoe." He had timed it perfectly they were directly beneath the sprig of mistletoe he had hung right before her arrival.

Zia looked confused, "So the significance is that you kiss under it?"

Carter smiled, "Yes, the tradition is that a guy can kiss any girl he wanted and if she refused she would have bad luck."

Zia smiled and said, "Well thank you, I wouldn't want bad luck." Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and said, "But let me just make sure." She then pulled him into another kiss. When they parted they stayed in that position for a few seconds just looking into each other's eyes. Until Sadie interrupted them by coming out of the library seeing them and saying, "Get a room you two."

They both blushed and Zia said, "Hi Sadie we were just…"

Sadie laughed and said, "Oh save it I was only teasing. I was just going to bed." She smiled and headed for the stairs. As she passed out of view she said, "Have fun."

Carter said, "Well after that awkwardness, do you want to continue?" Zia said, "The tour or…?" Carter blushed and became very nervous, "Either, or whatever you want to do, or we could just stand here…"

Zia silenced his ramblings with a kiss too which Carter obliged. After that they talked and kissed some more until Zia exclaimed she was tired and Carter walked her to her room. He kissed her goodnight before beginning to walk away. He got about 2 steps in the direction of his room before he felt Zia grab his hand and he turned around. She said, "A week without Carter Kane was difficult. Could you stay? At least until I fall asleep?"

Carter nervously stammered, "Uh huh." And allowed Zia to lead him into her room. Zia took off her shoes and hopped on the bed. She then gestured for Carter to join her. He took off his shoes and laid down next to her. She moved closer to him and put her head on his chest to use him as a pillow and he wrapped his arm around her. They stayed like that enjoying one another's company until they both fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Carter woke to the sound of floorboards creaking. He sat up careful not to wake Zia and looked at the clock next to her bed, 6:30 AM. It was Christmas morning so the little ones would already be up. That's the floor creaking he had heard. He carefully removed himself from the bed without waking Zia and walked over to her desk he wrote a quick note saying,

" _Sorry I had to leave to avoid getting caught. Merry Christmas come downstairs when you're ready."_

He placed it next to her. If he got caught in here there would be no end to it.

He walked over to her balcony and turned into a falcon then flew out and landed on his own balcony before turning back into human. He quickly showered and changed before heading to the stairs. He stood leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs and saw that almost all of the really little kids had come down and were surrounding the tree.

In the middle of the night the tree had changed. Before it had been the one they had all decorated with ornaments but now it had shimmering hieroglyphs floating in orbit around the tree. Each of the hieroglyphs was an initiate's name. He and Sadie had set that up a few nights ago. That and a trick they did with the presents, they had collected all of the gifts the older kids wanted under the tree and put them in the Duat and charming them to appear under the tree at exactly 5 AM.

The kids were still in their PJ's and Carter watched as they excitedly examined the presents, probally trying to guess the contents without touching it. Carter considered going down but strangely he enjoyed watching them so excited and curious and he thought to himself, "Is this what having kids is like, seeing their joy and knowing you had a part in causing it." He stood there for a few more minutes until he felt arms wrap around his waist. He smiled and turned around. Zia was standing there. She smiled and kissed him. Then she pulled him downstairs to join the kids. He and Zia sat on the couch and convinced them to wait for everyone before opening gifts. They played some small games to keep them distracted until everyone in the house had finally come down.

To avoid chaos Carter volunteered to hand out the gifts that were under the tree. He would pass out one to each person before allowing anyone to open anything then move onto the next row of presents and so on until there was nothing left. There were laughs and thank you's all around. The younger initiates were fun to watch as they opened the gifts and then would scream excitedly about it. Carter and Sadie had worked together to provide at least one gift to everyone labeled "Santa." Individual initiates had given gifts to other initiates and such and were all talking and laughing.

Now relieved of his duties as gift distributer Carter sat next to Zia she had a few gifts next to her and was smiling but it was obvious she had noticed nothing from Carter. He whispered in her ear, "I have your gift in my room I wanted to give it to you in private." She smiled and brushed her lips against his cheek then rested her head on his shoulder.

The group ate breakfast together before everyone went off for their daily activities and to play with their gifts. No magic lessons were to happen today so everyone was free. Now that they were left to their own devices Carter led Zia up to his room to give her his gift. He led her to the balcony to reveal his scrying bowl and a second one with Black oil. He led her over to the one with black oil and looked at her. Zia's expression showed a combonation of confusion and disappointment but he had expected that because he had not fully explained it. He said, "Don't worry its not a regular scrying bowl." He turned to the bowl and said, "September 20th, 2012. Land of Demons." The oil rippled and showed them kissing during their picnic on the beach of the Land of Demons. Carter waved his hand over it and it disappeared. He said, "It's a memory scryer. I read about it in the Book of Thoth after we got it back but before we returned it to Thoth. It can show any of the viewer's memories as long as they know the date and the location, the time helps or the default is the strongest memory there. I thought you'd like it to remember your village or Iskander. Do you like it?" She stared at him and then nearly tackled him off the balcony in a hug. He hugged her back and said, "So that's a yes that you like it?"

She pulled back just enough to look at him and said, "Yes, thank you Carter." Then she kissed him.

When the kiss ended he just held her in a hug and whispered, "Merry Christmas Zia."

 **THE END**

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